Good Is Not Soft
Good is Not Soft is one of the hero-related archetypes. These characters aren't anti-heroes, vigilantes or even portrayed as Good Is Not Nice. They're genuinely friendly, sociable, caring people, always looking out for their friends and family and trying to do the right thing. However, heroes who falls under this trope actually is a nice guy or girl. It's just that this kindness doesn't extend to giving free passes to the truly vile and horrific among their enemies. S/he is the reason why the villain should be afraid, especially since s/he isn't gonna wait to be angered or snap before the inevitable beatdown/killing begins. The Good Is Not Soft character will find them, will stop them and (if they're lucky) will kill them before they can make them angry. Then they'll (usually) go home to enjoy dinner and settle in for a good night's sleep. This trope has the potential to slide into or be interpreted as an cold-blooded murder, if the hero's method of ending the villain's threat is excessively cruel. Different viewers will have different ideas about what qualifies as being excessively cruel to a villain. Even so, this trope will most likely lead to him being just as bad as the villain if taken too far. This isn't an unusual trait of the pacifist. This is also common with Beware the Nice Ones. If the character is a jerk rather than a typical nice Guy, then they fall under Good Is Not Nice. Lawful Good characters fit this trope perfectly, especially if their duty is to reward good and punish evil. See also Anti-Hero and Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes. Some Examples Anime & Manga *The heroes in Fist of the North Star (especially Kenshiro) all have this trait in spades. They'll protect and nurture good people with a smile on their face. But they will resort to bloody violence toward all villains. *Nanoha Takamachi of Lyrical Nanoha is one of the nicest people around and always tries to communicate with her enemies first. That does not mean she won't blast her opponents hard, if necessary, which may include students, friends or daughters. The fandom tends to refer to this behaviour as a kind of "Listen or be shot. Fail to listen, be shot again." mentality. *Belldandy of Ah! My Goddess is the sweetest, kindest, most nurturing person imaginable. She'll go out of her way to help anyone and would never raise her voice in anger. She's also an unspeakably powerful being and the very incarnation of Beware the Nice Ones, so don't get any ideas about taking over the world or harming her loved ones. Ever. *Dr. Kenzo Tenma from Monster is an excellent example. While a genius neurosurgeon, he's a humble, principled and compassionate doctor, loved by his patients. His only obvious flaw is his habit of manhandling those who offend his sense of justice. But when it becomes clear that he must go on a manhunt in order to save innocents from the monster he unwittingly unleashed on the world, he soon becomes a fearsome vigilante. *Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Z is a Nice Guy that is very polite, and values life having come from a Bad Future where all the protagonists have died. However, he's a Combat Pragmatist who is very serious in battle aiming to kill his opponents and even willing to fight his own allies if the situation calls for it. Such as when his father Vegeta wanted to aid Semi-Perfect Cell to become perfect. Trunks warns Vegeta that he will blast him to stop Cell but Vegeta thinks Trunks is too soft to shoot at his own father. Trunks proves Vegeta WRONG. **Goku was this as a kid/teen. This is especially demonstrated when he mercilessly kills King Piccolo and his henchmen for murdering his friends. He downplays this trope as an adult, due to the combination of him showing mercy to his enemies, thus making them into friends and mostly enjoying fighting for the competitive aspect. *Luffy from One Piece. He's generally an oblivious person with a good heart, but has shown quite capable of taking on anyone, even his friends, if he feels they've done wrong. *Celty Sturluson is — underneath her fearsome reputation as the Headless Rider of Ikebukuro — easily the most sympathetic and benevolent figure in Durarara!!. Nonetheless, her fearsomeness is fully justified whenever she's dealing with lowly street thugs. *Shunsui Kyōraku of Bleach is easily the friendliest and most laidback of the captains. Despite that, he will do his job, even the more violent parts, when it comes down to it. In his very first arc, after giving Chad an opportunity to run away from the fight, he cuts him down. He killed Starrk, who was actually a Reluctant Anti-Villain. And he pushes back against the Central 46 when he thinks they're hindering the Gotei's military readiness. *Touma Kamijou of A Certain Magical Index. He's compassionate to just about everyone, and many scenes show him helping out complete strangers who he just happened to pass by. He's also fairly upbeat despite his perpetual bad luck. However, if they threaten or harm someone on his watch, and he will punch their lights out. Even if they are a Physical God and World War 3 stands in his way. *Hanji Zoe from Attack on Titan is generally a sweet, friendly and funny person. But any senior officer of the Survey Corps is not someone to trifle with as the Female Titan found out and Pastor Nick learned the hard way. *Himura Kenshin of Rurouni Kenshin is a Nice Guy and is known to go out of his way to help others. But if someone manage to tick him off by harming innocents or his friends, they will be in a world of pain. *This is a common trait among some of the most powerful people in Magi – Labyrinth of Magic. **Aladdin is a very sweet and friendly boy who goes out of his way to help others and detests war but hurting his friends or innocent people will cause him to deliver a beatdown and even then he will not kill you. **Sinbad cares for the people of his country deeply and treats everyone with respect. However anyone associated with Al-Thamen will be mercilessly annihilated and he will resort to any measures to protect his country. **Ugo was initially presented as a protector and friend of Aladdin but when Judar was about to seriously injure Aladdin, Ugo stepped in and destroyed him with raw physical power alone. ***In earlier episode when Aladdin rushed to save Kou princess ambushed by renegade Kou empire soldiers, Ugo completely obliterates about 30 of them upon arrival. Aladdin either does not notices this or does not care. *''Naruto'' has several characters that fit this trope, given that most of the named characters are or were members of their respective nation's military. **Naruto Uzumaki himself often has shades of this. He is genuinely friendly to most people and is incredibly kind to his friends. This doesn't mean, however, that he can't kick your arse hard should you prove to be an enemy, and will be extremely enraged if anyone hurt one of his precious people. **Perhaps the best example is Kakashi Hatake. He is kind and laid back with his students and colleagues yet is capable of instantly becoming a pragmatic, efficient, and ruthless fighter should you be an enemy of his nation or worse yet if you try to harm his comrades or loved ones. **Kakashi's childhood friend Might Guy is a prime example as well. On the surface he is an overly energetic and naive fitness/martial arts fanatic who constantly calls upon the power and goodness of youth. Yet he is shown on several occasions to be a warrior of near equal skill to Kakashi and willing to fight to the death to defend his allies. In later arcs he sacrifices himself by fighting Madara to the death, after the latter had essentially become a physical god, in order to buy time for Naruto and the reinforcements to get to the battlefield to save his allies **Chōji Akimichi also qualifies. He is one of the more laid back and personable people in the entire series, and has a rather strong moral compass, but he is still a Konoha shinobi and is willing to die defending his comrades. In the Sasuke Retrival Arc he volunteers to stay behind to block Jirobo's persuit of Team Shikamaru, and not only manages to defy the odds and win the fight but absolutely destroys Jirobo when the latter insults Shikamaru, becoming the first member of Naruto's generation to kill an opponent outright. **Neji Hyūga after being lectured by Naruto, also becomes more laid-back, friendly and understanding. However, he will not hesitate to beat you down if you are a villain. *Ran Mouri from Detective Conan is all sweet, kindness and gentleness and is willing to help people, whether they're friend or foe. But being a national-level karate user, she won't hesitate to take anyone down when her loved ones are in danger. Films--Animated *Bob and Helen Parr, better known as Mr. Incredible & Elastigirl respectively. They don't believe in using lethal force, do their best to protect civilians and save lives, and even exchange a sigh of "I love you" in the middle of a battle. But just because they don't kill doesn't mean they can't—they choose not to, and there's a big difference (see: Bob taking out a massive group of Mooks in a few seconds, or Helen knocking out a robber with a single punch without even looking at him). And God have mercy on your soul if you dare to touch their children. Not to mention every time a hovercraft explodes with one of Syndrome's henchmen inside. **When Bob is captured by Syndrome for the first time and (mistakenly) believes Helen and the kids are dead: he tries to grab the villain, but ends up snatching Mirage instead (and only because Mirage protected Syndrome by pushing him out of the way). Bob threatens to crush Mirage if Syndrome doesn't free him, but the villain calls his bluff, calling him "weak" when he lets her go. This leads to Mirage bringing up the trope with Syndrome later, pointing out that valuing life isn't a weakness, and not valuing it isn't a strength, and eventually leads her to a full-on Heel–Face Turn later in the film. Unfortunately, by that point, Bob's had some time to think about his family's "death", and he's now more than willing to very slowly squeeze Mirage's throat so that she'll feel every second of her death. It's only by gasping out that his family survived that she's able to survive herself. Later, when Syndrome kidnaps Jack-Jack, Bob's solution is to throw his car at the villain, which blows up his aircraft and inadvertently kills him. Films--Live-Action Literature Western Animation *Kim Possible, a Disney character no less, is really caring and helpful, even more so as she matures. She has tried to reason with the villains at times, but most episode has her resorting to her fists to resolve problems. **Ron Stoppable too. He is sweet, and goofy. He's been a distraction for Kim. The only villains that were Killed Off for Real were the ones that threatened Kim's life. That gets him furious. *The Powerpuff Girls fit this. Generally sociable and friendly, they even manage to get along with several members of their Rogues Gallery when the villains aren't actively doing something evil. Nonetheless, their typical approach to crime-fighting is "beat the ever-loving stuffing out of the bad guys and dump their broken bodies in jail." **Professor Utonium is another example. He's an extremly kind, laid-back, charismatic, patient, helpful person, even to strangers, and usually doesn't get involver in crime fighting. However, his buttons are defenetly pushed once you hurt or insult the Powerpuff Girls. Also, he once saved the day by creating an alter-ego by the name of Powerprof. *Optimus Prime of Transformers: Prime is one of the nicest, most purely heroic characters imaginable. He's also a giant alien war-machine and willing to brutally kill an opponent who has proven irredeemable. It doesn't matter if you used to be his friend. It doesn't matter if you used to be his mentor. It doesn't matter whether you're a human he could easily crush in a fair fight, another Transformer he's on roughly equal footing with, or even a god-like being like Unicron. Once you've crossed that line, nothing else matters any more. You're going down, and going down HARD. **This is a trait shared by many Autobots (and Maximals) throughout the Transformers franchise, both figuratively and literally. Optimus just tends to embody it best. When your race has "war machine" as a species trait, you tend to be ready when push comes to shove. **In the G1 cartoon, during a flashback to his first meeting with Megatron and being rebuilt into Optimus, there is a scene where he just blasts holes into 'con after 'con after 'con. In Transformers: The Movie, Optimus literally runs over one Decepticon and blasts several others before he confronts Megatron. **Optimus Prime from the Transformers film series possesses similar traits, as shown when he forced to kill Sentinel Prime for betraying the Autobots, Megatron as the retribution of his overall morel event horizon acts, and Attinger for his fellow Autobots' death which made Prime, Bumblebee, Hound, Drift, Crosshairs, Wheelie, Brains, and Topspin among the last surviving Cybertronians on Earth. *Lion-O from ThunderCats (2011) would seem to be soft compared to other Cats, since he is the only one willing to try and convince his enemies to stand down and show them kindness. However, this kindness does not extend to their bosses, such as when he defeats the king of the rats Ratar-O without hesitation. He also doesn't let his compassion get in the way when innocent lives are at stake, such as blowing several Lizard fighters out of the sky in the season finale. *Miss Martian from Young Justice is generally a decent, heroic person who genuinely cares for her team-mates. However, she's not above mentally assaulting enemies that really get on her bad side; as Psimon learned in the episode "Image". In Season Two, she becomes even more ruthless to her foes. *Terry from Batman Beyond is far kinder than his mentor, but while he is Batman and like Bruce will not actively kill, unlike Bruce, he won't save villains from their own fate. *In Avatar: The Last Airbender, most of the gang fit this, being a team of heroic true companions who seldom hold back when all hell breaks loose. Note that at the climax, every single one of Aang's friends was urging him to kill the Fire Lord Ozai, and when Zuko pulled his long overdue redemption, Katara openly threatened to kill him if he ever looked like he would hurt Aang, and she clearly meant it. **Iroh also fits this. He's a kind old man who puts up with his nephew's cold behavior, gives tea to random strangers... and cheerfully maims people who stand in his way. **Avatar Kyoshi. Though definitely good, she did not believe in Thou Shalt Not Kill and never hesitated to give an enemy what was coming to him. Like a soldier, if an enemy needed dealing with, he got dealt with and that was that, no regrets. ***It should be noted that Thou Shalt Not Kill was Aang's own personal conviction (part of his background as an airbender), and not an aspect of The Avatar. In fact, each and every previous life he accessed while meditating on the misty island was agreed on the point of doing what's best for the planet even though it might be unpalatable to his ethics. **For that matter, Aang himself. He is pacifistic, vegetarian, friendly, and take away Ozai's firebending so he can't be a threat ever again. Seeing how a bender considers their bending to be an essential part of their being, not unlike their very soul, this is a very unpleasant experience. **Monk Gyatso in Book One. The temple was subject to a surprise attack by overwhelming force of supercharged firebenders. This particular Airbender corpse was found atop a pile of at least 20 firebender soldiers. Said temple was the one where Aang learned his pacifistic ways. *The titular character of The Legend of Korra is this. If you're her friend she's fun and joking, if a bit egotistical. To enemies she's a terrifying Blood Knight, more than willing to give a complete beat-down, and it's pretty clear that she would have been willing to kill at least one of her opponents if she hadn't been interrupted. In Book Two she actually does kill her uncle Unalaq, and doesn't express any problem with it. Book Three shows that she's not alone: in the final episodes, Mako, Suyin Beifong, and Tonraq do not hesitate to use lethal force on their opponents. *While they're not like this in all incarnations, the 2003 version of the TMNT certainly fall into this territory. They have no qualms about killing but are generally pretty nice to their friends, and even when they bicker, you can still tell they love each other. Gallery Mr i.jpg|Mr. Incredible Elastigirl.png|Elastigirl Kim Possible.jpg|Kim Possible Ron Stoppable.jpg|Ron Stoppable Gyasto.jpg|Monk Gyasto (Avatar: The Last Airbender) Suyin.jpg|Suyin Beifong (The Legend of Korra) Phineas.jpg|Phineas Isabella.jpg|Isabella Sonic The Hedgehog.jpg|Sonic The Hedgehog Category:Conflicts Category:Heroic Events Category:Heroic Symbolism Category:Justice Scenario Category:About Heroes